Ch.2 Theories of Development (3/10) Brett

What do theories do? provide framework to guide research and explain observations
5 major theories of development - each trying to explain how human behaviors and experiences change over time
1) psychoanalytic - human actions and thoughts originate from unconscious impulses and childhood conflicts
2) behaviorist - emphasizes conditioning, reinforcement and punishment affects behavior
3) cognitive - thought process are powerful influences on behavior and development
4) sociocultural - guidance, support, and structure provided by cultures and societies
5) epigenetic - genes affect every aspect of development; can be influenced by environmental issues like toxins introduced in utero

each theory has advantages and barriers, more research is needed

Ch.5 The First 2 Years : Bio-social Development (3/10) Brett

Body Changes
much growth takes place in first 2 yrs, height weight, head circumference
norm for birth weight is 7.5 lbs, norm length is 20 in.
birth weight doubles in 4 months, triples by 1 yr, quadruples by 2 yrs
sleep gradually decreases over the 2 yrs

Brain Development
increases dramatically in size in first 2 yrs, from 25% to 75% of adult size
experience is necessary for dendrites and synapses to link neurons
experience-dependent brain growth reflects the varied, culture-specific experiences of the infant

Ch.6 The First 2 Years : Cognitive Development (3/10)Kim

The Six Stages of Sensorimotor Intelligence
For an overview of the stages of sensorimotor thought, it helps to group the six stages into . The first two stages involve the infant’s responses to its own body.
Primary Circular Reactions
Stage One (birth to 1 month)
Reflexes: sucking, grasping, staring, listening.
Stage Two (1–4 months)
The first acquired adaptations: accommodation and coordination of reflexes. Examples: sucking a pacifier differently from a nipple; grabbing a bottle to suck it.
Stage Three (4–8 months)
An awareness of things: responding to people and objects. Example: clapping hands when mother says “patty-cake.”
Stage Four (8–12 months)
New adaptation and anticipation: becoming more deliberate and purposeful in responding to people and objects. Example: putting mother’s hands together in order to make her start playing patty-cake.
Stage Five (12–18 months)
New means through active experimentation: experimentation and creativity in the actions of the “little scientist.” Example: putting a teddy bear in the toilet and flushing it.
Stage Six (18–24 months)
New means through mental combinations: considering before doing provides the child with new ways of achieving a goal without resorting to trial-and-error experiments. Example: before flushing, remembering that the toilet overflowed the last time, and hesitating."
Primary circular reactions-- The first of three types of feedback loops in sensorimotor intelligence, this one involving the infant’s own body. The infant senses motion, sucking, noise, and so on, and tries to understand them.
As reflexes adjust, the baby enters stage two, first acquired adaptations(also called the stage of first habits). Adaptation is crucial to learning, as it includes both assimilation and accommodation (see p. 45), which the person uses to make sense of experience. "
Secondary circular reactions --The second of three types of feedback loops in sensorimotor intelligence, this one involving people and objects. The infant is responsive to other people and to toys and other objects the infant can touch and move.
Object permanence --The realization that objects (including people) still exist when they cannot be seen, touched, or heard.
Tertiary circular reactions --The third of three types of feedback loops in sensorimotor intelligence, this one involving active exploration and experimentation. The infant explores a range of new activities, varying his or her responses as a way of learning about the world.

"Little scientist” --Piaget’s term for the stage- five toddler (age 12 to 18 months) who experiments without anticipating the results. "Piaget referred to the stage-five toddler as a “little scientist” who “experiments in order to see.” Their scientific method is trial and error"
Deferred imitation-- A sequence in which an infant first perceives something that someone else does and then performs the same action a few hours or even days later. Deferred imitation occurs when infants copy behavior they noticed hours or even days earlier
"new means through active experimentation. This builds on the accomplishments of stage four, but goal-directed and purposeful activities become more expansive and creative."
"Finally, in the sixth stage (age 18 to 24 months), toddlers begin to anticipate and solve simple problems by using mental combinations, an intellectual experimentation that supersedes the active experimentation of stage five. The child is able to put two ideas together, such as that a doll is not a real baby but a doll can be belted into a stroller and taken for a walk"
Habituation(from the word habit) refers to getting used to an experience after repeated exposure to it."
"Piaget discovered, described, and then celebrated active infant learning, which he described in six stages of sensorimotor intelligence. Babies use their senses and motor skills to gain an understanding of their world, first with reflexes and then by adapting through assimilation and accommodation. Object permanence, pursuit of goals, and deferred imitation all develop earlier in infancy than Piaget realized. The infant is a little scientist, not only at age 1, as Piaget described so well, but even in the first months of life. Thinking develops before motor skills can execute thoughts.
Information-processing theory--A perspective that compares human thinking processes, analogy, to computer analysis of data, including sensory input, connections, stored memories, and output.
Affordance --An opportunity for perception and interaction that is offered by a person, place, or object in the environment.
Visual cliff, designed to provide the illusion of a sudden drop off between one horizontal surface and another."
Dynamic perception --Perception that is primed to focus on movement and change. "
The lead researcher, Carolyn Rovee-Collier, developed another experiment that demonstrated that 3-month-old infants could remember after two weeks if they had a brief reminder session before being retested (Rovee-Collier & Hayne, 1987). A reminder session is any perceptual experience that is intended to help a person recollect an idea, a thing, or an experience
"Memory is not one thing, “not a unitary or monolithic entity” (Schacter & Badgaiyan, 2001, p.1). People are inaccurate when they make general statements about their “memory,” as in “I have a good memory” or “My memory is failing.” Brain-imaging techniques (such as fMRI) reveal many distinct brain regions devoted to particular aspects of memory. There is probably a memory for faces, for sounds, for events, for sights, for phrases, and much more.
One distinction is between implicit memory, which is memory for routines and memories that remain hidden until a particular stimulus brings them to mind (like the mobile), and explicit memory, which is memory that can be recalled on demand."
"The Major Memory Systems and Developmental Tasks
Brain Systems General System Subsystems Tasks Related to Tasks Infancy Example
Infant cognition can be studied using the information-processing perspective, which analyzes each component of how thoughts begin and are organized, remembered, and expressed. Infant perception is powerfully influenced by particular experiences and motivation, so the affordances perceived by one infant differ from those perceived by another. Memory depends on both brain maturation and experience. That is why memory is fragile in the first year (being increased by dynamic perception and reminders) and becomes more evident (although many types of memory remain quite fragile) in the second year."
Child-directed speech--The high-pitched, simplified, and repetitive way adults speak to infants. (Also called baby talk or motherese.)
"Grammar includes all the methods that languages use to communicate meaning. Word order, prefixes, suffixes, intonation, verb forms, pronouns and negations, prepositions and articles—all of these are aspects of grammar. Grammar is obvious when two-word combinations begin, at about 21 months. These sentences follow the word order “Baby cry” or “More juice,” rather than the reverse. Soon the child is combining three words, usually in subject–verb–object order in English (for example, “Mommy read book”), rather than any of the five other possible sequences of those words."
Language acquisition device (LAD) Chomsky’s term for a hypothesized mental structure that enables humans to learn language, including the basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary, and intonation."
Scholars have attempted to integrate all three perspectives, notably in a monograph based on 12 experiments designed by eight researchers (Hollich et al., 2000). The authors developed a hybrid (which literally means “a new creature, formed by combining other living things”) of previous theories. They called their model an emergentist coalition because it combines valid aspects of several theories about the emergence of language during infancy."
From the first days of life, babies attend to words and expressions, responding as well as their limited abilities allow—crying, cooing, and soon babbling. Before age 1, they understand simple words and communicate with gestures. At 1 year, most infants speak. Vocabulary accumulates slowly at first, but then more rapidly with the naming explosion and with the emergence of the holophrase and the two-word sentence. The impressive language learning of the first two years can be explained in many ways. One theory contends that caregivers must teach language, reinforcing the infant’s vocal expressions. Another theory relies on the idea of an inborn language acquisition device, a mental structure that facilitates the acquisition of language as soon as maturation makes that possible. A third theory stresses social interaction, implying that infants learn language because they are social beings. A hybrid model combines all three of these theories. Because infants vary in culture, learning style, and social context, the hybrid theory acknowledges that each of the other theories may have some validity at different points in the acquisition of language.
Sensorimotor Intelligence
1. Piaget realized that very young infants are active learners, seeking to understand their complex observations and experiences. Adaptation in infancy is characterized by sensorimotor intelli- gence, the first of Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development. At every time of their lives, people adapt their thoughts to the experiences they have.
2. Sensorimotor intelligence develops in six stages—three pairs two stages each—beginning with reflexes and ending with the toddler’s active exploration and use of mental combinations. In each pair of stages, development occurs in one of three types of circular reactions, or feedback loops, in which the infant takes in experiences and tries to make sense of them.
3. Reflexes provide the foundation for intelligence. The continual process of assimilation and accommodation is evident in the first acquired adaptations, from about 1 to 4 months. The sucking reflex accommodates the particular nipples and other objects that the baby learns to suck. As time goes on, infants become more goal-oriented, creative, and experimental as “little scientists.”
4. Infants gradually develop an understanding of objects over the first two years of life. As shown in Piaget’s classic experiment, infants understand object permanence and begin to search for hid- den objects at about 8 months. Other research finds that Piaget underestimated the cognition of young infants.
5. Another approach to understanding infant cognition is information-processing theory, which looks at each step of the thinking process, from input to output. The perceptions of a young infant are attuned to the particular affordances, or opportunities for action, that are present in the infant’s world.
6. Objects that move are particularly interesting to infants, as are other humans. Objects as well as people afford many possibilities for interaction and perception, and therefore these affordances enhance early cognition.
7. Infant memory is fragile but not completely absent. Reminder sessions help trigger memories, and young brains learn motor sequences long before they can remember verbally. Memory is multifaceted; explicit memories are rare in infancy.
Language:What Develops in the First Two Years?
8. Eager attempts to communicate are apparent in the first year. Infants babble at about 6 to 9 months, understand words and gestures by 10 months, and speak their first words at about 1 year.
9. Vocabulary begins to build very slowly until the infant knows approximately 50 words. Then a naming explosion begins. Toward the end of the second year, toddlers begin putting two words together, showing by their word order that they understand the rudiments of grammar.
10.Various theories attempt to explain how infants learn language as quickly as they do. The three main theories emphasize different aspects of early language learning: that infants must be taught, that their brains are genetically attuned to language, and that their social impulses foster language learning.
11.Each of these theories seems partly true. The challenge for developmental scientists has been to formulate a hybrid theory that uses all the insights and research on early language learning. The challenge for caregivers is to respond appropriately to the infant’s early attempts to communicate.

Ch.7 The First 2 Years : Psychosocial Development (3/10)Gil

Ch.8 The Play Years : Bio-social Development (4-5-10) Shannon

1 - 6 years
During the play years, children grow taller and become thinner, overweight is more common than underweight (due to overeating)
Children have small appetites and can be picky an are often rewarded with non-nutritious foods.
Brain development:
Myelination- The process by which axons become coated with myelin, a fatty sub stance that speeds the transmission of nerve impulses from neuron to neuron.
Corpus callosum - A long band of nerve fibers that connect the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
Lateralization- Sidedness - the specialization in certain functions by each side of the brain, with one side dominant for each activity. The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, and vice versa.
Prefrontal cortex also called the frontal cortex or frontal lobe - is an area in the very front part of the brain's outer layer (cortex). The provides higher-order cognition, planning, and goal directed behavior - rules all other areas of the brain.
Perseveration- The tendency to perserve in, or stick to, one thought or action for a long time.

Limbic System: the area of the brain that is crucial int he expression and regulation of emotions:
Amygdala- a tiny structure in the brain that registers emotion, both positive and negative, especially fear. (Responds to facial expressions)
Hippocampus- A brain structure that is a central processor of memory, especially memory of locations.
Hypothalamus- Responds to signal from the amygdala and the hippocampus to produce hormones that activate other parts of the brain and body.

Motor skills - fine and gross

Injury- Due to the immaturity of the prefrontal cortex, impulsivity
Injury control/ harm reduction - Practices that are aimed at anticipating, controlling and preventing dangerous activities; these practices reflect the beliefs that accidents are not random and that injuries can be made less harmful if proper controls are in place.
Levels of prevention - Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary (p.220)
Child Maltreatment- now refers to all intentional harm to, or avoidable endangerment of, anyone under 18.
Child abuse- Deliberate action that is harmful to a child's physical, emotional, or sexual well-being.
Child neglect- Failure to meet a child's basic physical, educational, or emotional needs.
Reported maltreatment- Harm or endangerment about which someone has notified the authorities.
Substantiated maltreatment- Harm or endangerment that has been reported, investigated, and verified.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)- A delayed reaction to a trauma or shock, which may include hyperactivity and hyper-vigilance, displaces anger, sleeplessness, sudden terror or anxiety, and confusion between fantasy and reality.
Maltreatment prevention- Primary, secondary, and tertiary (p.225)

Ch.9 The Play Years : Cognitive Development (3/17) Brett

Ages 2-6
Piaget - preoperational intelligence - going beyond senses and motor skills, "magical", not yet logical thinking
4 characteristics of early childhood thinking
1) Centration - tendency to focus on one aspect of a situation to the exclusion of others, egocentrism (self-centered)
2) focus on appearance - to the exclusion of other attributes, a thing is whatever it appears to be
3) static reasoning - assuming that the world does not change
4) irreversibility - failure to realize that reversing a process can sometimes restore whatever existed before

Conservation and logic - preoperational thinking fails to see that the same amount of something can appear to be different (glasses of liquid in different sizes containers)

Ch.10 The Play Years : Psychosocial Development (3/31)Kim

- regulation of emotions is crucial during play years (2 to 6)
-- this is made possible by maturation of the brain and experiences with parents and peers

Erickson's theory - crisis of initiative vs. guilt occurs during play years, children normally feel pride and self-esteem, sometimes mixed with feelings of guilt

- many severe emotional problems that are evidence of psychopathology are first evident during the play years

- empathy and antipathy develop during play years, both coming from within child but family experiences can play a role in development

- Baumrind - study of 100 preschool children - was limited to middle class Caucasians in California - affecting some of outcomes
---- identified 3 distinct parenting styles
1) Authoritarian - parents word is law, children are to be seen and not heard, clear rules are set down and punishment is delivered for violations
2) Permissive - 180 degrees from authoritarian, few if any rules, children's input is highly valued, no responsibility for shaping children
3) Authoritative - somewhere in the middle of the first 2, a balance

in general, children grow to be happy successful adults when they have the authoritative parenting experience (according to book)

- children are prime consumers of media, often for several hours a day, without parental involvement
- content of media is crucial
- themes and characters of TV programs and video games can lead to increased aggression

- even 2 yr olds correctly use sex-specific labels, and young children become aware of gender differences in clothing, toys, future careers, and playmates
- gender stereotypes, favoritism, and segregation peak at about age 6
- nature and nurture both involved in sex and gender, with every type of scientist and each major theory having their own perspective on gender distinctions

Freud emphasized that children are attracted to the opposite sex parent and eventually seek to identify or align themselves with the same-sex parent.
Behaviorists hold that gender-related behaviors are learned through reinforcement/punishment and social modeling.
Cognitive Theorists note that simplistic preoperational thinking leads to gender schema and therefore stereotypes.
Sociocultural Theorists point to the many male-female distinctions apparent in every society.

Ch.11 The School Years : Bio-social Development (3/10)Gil

Ch.12 The School Years :Cognitive Development (3/17) Brett

Piaget = 6yrs old to 7yrs old children begin concrete operational development, ego-centrism diminishes and logic begins; school age children can understand classification, conservation, identity, and reversibility
Vygotsky = social context of learning, influence of culture, lessons of school
International research finds that maturation is one factor (Piaget) in cognitive development of school age children, and cultural and economic forces are also influential (Vygotsky)

Ch.13 The School Years : Psychosocial Development (3/31) Jenny

Social comparison--The tendency to assess one’s abilities, achievements, social status, and other attributes by measuring them against those of other people, especially peers.
The culture of children includes the particular rules and rituals that are passed down from slightly older children without adult approval.
Deviancy training --The process whereby children are taught by their peers to avoid restrictions imposed by adults."
A similar idea arises from the theory of social efficacy—that people come to be-
lieve that they can affect their circumstances; this belief then leads to action that
changes the social context. As Bandura writes, “the human mind is generative,
reflective, proactive and creative, not merely reactive” (2006, p. 167)."

Kohlberg’s Three Levels and Six Stages of Moral Reasoning
Level I: Preconventional Moral Reasoning
The goal is to get rewards and avoid punishments; this is a self-centered level.
■ Stage One: Might makes right(a punishment and obedience orientation). The most important value is to maintain the appearance of obedience to authority, avoiding punishment while still advancing self-interest. Don’t get caught!
■ Stage Two: Look out for number one(an instrumental and relativist orientation).
Each person tries to take care of his or her own needs. The reason to be nice to other people is so that they will be nice to you.
Level II: Conventional Moral Reasoning
Emphasis is placed on social rules; this is a community-centered level.
■ Stage Three: “Good girl” and “nice boy.”Proper behavior is behavior that pleases other people. Social approval is more important than any specific reward.
■ Stage Four: “Law and order.”Proper behavior means being a dutiful citizen and obeying the laws set down by society, even when no police are nearby.
Level III: Postconventional Moral Reasoning
Emphasis is placed on moral principles; this level is centered on ideals.
■Stage Five: Social contract.
Obey social rules because they benefit everyone and are established by mutual agreement. If the rules become destructive or if one party doesn’t live up to the agreement, the contract is no longer binding. Under some circumstances, disobeying the law is moral.
■ Stage Six: Universal ethical principles.
General, universally valid principles, not individual situations (level I) or community practices (level II), determine right and wrong. Ethical values (such as “life is sacred”) are established by individual reflection and may contradict egocentric (level I) or so"
Preconventional moral reasoning
Kohlberg’s first level of moral reasoning, emphasizing rewards and punishments.
Conventional moral reasoning Kohlberg’s second level of moral reasoning, emphasizing social rules.
postconventional moral reasoning Kohlberg’s third level of moral reasoning, emphasizing moral principles.
Aggressive-rejected--Rejected by peers because of antagonistic, confrontational behavior.
Withdrawn-rejected --Rejected by peers because of timid, withdrawn, and anxious behavior.
Social cognition --The ability to understand social interactions, including the causes and consequences of human behavior.
Effortful control -- The ability to regulate one’s emotions and actions through effort, not simply through natural inclination.
Bullying --Repeated, systematic efforts to inflict harm through physical, verbal, or social attack on a weaker person.
Bully-victim --Someone who attacks others, and who is attacked as well. (Also called provocative victims because they do things that elicit bullying, such as taking a bully’s pencil.)

School-age children develop their own culture, with customs and morals that encourage
them to be loyal to each other. Moral development is affected by cognitive maturation
and cultural values, with school-age children being more influenced by the ethics of their
peer groups than by adults. All 6- to 11-year-olds need social acceptance and close, mu-
tual friendships, to protect against loneliness and depression.
Most children experience some peer rejection as well as acceptance. However,
some are repeatedly rejected and friendless, becoming victims of bullying. Bullying oc-
curs everywhere, but the frequency and type depend on the school climate, on the cul-
ture, and on the child’s age and gender. Efforts to reduce bullying have rarely been
successful; a whole-school approach seems best.
■

Latency --Freud’s term for middle childhood, during which children’s emotional drives and psychosocial needs are quiet (latent). Freud thought that sexual conflicts from earlier stages are only temporarily submerged, to burst forth again at puberty.
Industry versus inferiority -- The fourth of Erikson’s eight psychosexual development crises, during which children attempt to master many skills, developing a sense of themselves as either industrious or inferior, competent

Resilience --The capacity to adapt well to significant adversity and to overcome serious stress.

Ch.14 The School Years : Psychosocial Development (3/10)

Ch.15 Adolescence : Cognitive Development (3/17)

Ch.16 Adolescence : Psychosocial Development (3/31)